Freedom

Groessen, The Netherlands

I don't know exactly what to say, I'm stunned, perplexed and confused. Why would somebody slaughter another for his ideas. Of course this happens in Banana republics, but not in Europe. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, Pim Fortuyn, leader of the far-right wing party 'Lijst Fortuyn' was shot yesterday after having an interview on Dutch radio. Although his ideas where controversional, and he didn't offer real solutions for the policital problems he addressed, killing him just before the national elections for the parliament makes no fucking sense.

One day before The Netherlands celebrated 'Liberation Day', with as motto 'Freedom needs good listening' to stress the importance of free speech. Free speech is the base of a democracy, but even at the same location of the biggest festival around Liberation Day there where organised individuals trying to make the following point: 'Banning discrimincation is more important as the right on Free Speach'. At that time, two days ago, I thought about this statement, and it has a point. But how far should you go with that, Should you arrest people who shout 'gay!' at another person? Should you arrest people who shout 'weisses niggah' at people of Turkish nature? Should you arrest people who shout 'yo stupid niggah'? It's very hard to draw a line here, and I think that's something that should be seen per incident.

Pim Fortuyn made some (in my opinion) too right-wing statements like 'I think 16 million Dutchmen are about enough - this is a full country' and calling the Islamic culture 'stupid'. But this still doesn't warrant killing him, this is supposed to be a free country. And his ideas appealed a lot of people here, his party (which didn't exist until 4 months ago) would have gained around 20 of the 150 seats in parliament with next weeks elections. The killing of Pim by a 33 year old ultra-left guy will have quite a lot of impact on Dutch politics. They are speaking of postponing elections for some time, and the security of politicians will be increased. But in my opinion this is not the worst thing that will happen, the point lies in killing politicians to make sure they can not express their ideas anymore. It was a black day in Dutch politics yesterday, and perhaps a black day for modern democracy in general. All in all Pim's dead will have a big impact on politics here in the Netherlands, but I hope this deed will be not be followed by more.

Rest now Pim.

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